- Rich Hein/Sun-Times Media
- It’s important to remember that when it comes to the TIF surplus, Mayor Rahm gives to the schools with one hand and takes with the other.
Around the time Mayor Emanuel was unveiling his latest TIF reform, I started getting calls from exasperated teachers and parents about the games being played with the mayor’s last TIF reform.
Like whatever really dumb idea Mayor Emanuel’s cooking up—e.g., a Marriott hotel and DePaul B-ball arena in the South Loop.
With his reelection campaign coming up, the mayor obviously decided he had to play this game again, just in case the parents got restless.
Think of it as the Chicago’s version of American Idol, where the contestants come before the judges to sing for their supper, so to speak. If anyone knows the words to “Copacabana,” it might be worth singing a line or two the next time you bump into the mayor—just in case he’s partial to Barry Manilow.
If he conducted other business this way he’d have told Marriott, “We’ll pay for the coffee shop in your new hotel. But you’ll have to come up with the rest—how about a bake sale?”
